Larisa Anatolyevna's Valaam

PC: Masha Healy

Our trip to Valaam was our first shared I-wish-I-could-go dream and the last far-off destination on our ambitious itinerary.

Initially, we had wanted to go on our own, but we soon found out that it really wasn’t that simple. In order to get to the island, you had to know the personal phone numbers of the boat captains…which you couldn’t get unless you were already on the boat. So, you really couldn’t. Otherwise, you could go with a pilgrimage group. So we did.

Sveta, our Moscow friend, booked tickets for us. She was stressed when we asked her about it. Finally, she admitted that everything had been going smoothly until she sent in the passport information. Within minutes, they called her: “This is a trip special for Russians. We have tourist (as opposed to pilgrimage) groups. Different content, a price and a different level of comfort, since what’s ok for us is not at all ok for foreigners. So please tell them that they can’t make us uncomfortable or complain. We cannot go out of our way to accommodate them; they will have to adjust to us.”

You bet we were indignant and started practicing our troparions (religious hymns), ready to show them who the REAL PRAVOSLAVNIE (“Pravoslavnie”- Orthodox people) were. On June at 6:30 am sharp, we were waiting next to the store OKEY for the troop to gather. Five minutes before departure, a frazzled woman, our guide who went by "Larisa Anatolyevna" swooped down from the chaos and herded us all into the bus. Before she did, however, she counted us and realized that four people needed to go in a separate car. She yelled above the noise “Perhaps our messrs. Americans?” We were struck dumb, but Sveta had already shot back that there were six of us. Besides, three women, having noticed that the car was more comfortable, elbowed into the car before we gained our breath back.

As always, we occupied the last seats of the bus, since there were five consecutive seats. After four hours of sleep, all we wanted was to doze off to the boisterous bounce of Russian country roads, but our dreams were tinged with Larisa Anatolyevna’s microphone voice talking and telling about every church we passed, about Valaam, about life, about Russia, about salvation.

Last thing I remember before dozing off was her asking what the capital of Karelia (a northern region now divided between Russian and Finland) was? People offered a few answers. She shook her head disapprovingly. Then she laughed and said “You should know this by now. HELSINKI. In the spiritual sense, that is. All this government stuff is unimportant. We are all Orthodox and the same and in that sense, Helsinki is also ours.”

On our first and only stop for our six-hour road trip was in small community in the middle of nowhere, just pines and pines and a moose or two. It was organized by a priest to help substance abusers. His community boasted a 75% success rate and had given rise to other endeavors in this chilly, pine part of the world.

The little wooden world had a church, fountains and rows of cabins. Everyone raced for the bathrooms, but we went for pirozhki. As we were the cafe, Larisa Anatolyevna asked Katya “are you even Orthodox?” Katya, furious, proceeded to lay out all our various claims to Orthodoxy (choir directors, choir members, priest’s daughter, etcetera). Larisa Anatolievna wasn’t impressed.

After five hours on the bus and three on a boat we arrived in Valaam. Our quarters were aboard the ship Admiral Kuznetsov in thimble sized cabins. We had brought motion sickness medicine, secretly hoping for a slight romantic rock on the Laduga Lake waves, but the boat stayed quite still.

Later, after supper, we went up to the main church. As we were entering into the Monastery complex, I felt LA’s burning, horrified eyes on my neck. Her right hand, with each nail of a different metallic sheen, and four rings  (I'm sure each band had "Save and keep" chiseled in on the inside) poked the air hopelessly in my direction. I started pulling on my dress, praying that it hadn't accidentally slipped a bit too low.

“WHERE IS YOUR CROSS? DO YOU NOT WEAR ONE?!”

Terrified for my cherished baptismal cross (and my life), I groped for the chain. My panicked fingers finally tugged on the familiar tangle…the cross had tangled and was on my back, leaving only a portion of the chain, like a decorative choker, visible.” Please don’t scare me like that!” I said. “I was scared myself!” Larisa Anatolyevna huffed.

Larisa Anatolyevna's blondish hair, was always stuffed under a zebra scarf which had a tendency to slip off. The fifty-year old  wore leggings (against the mosquitoes, she explained to me later) and she never stopped talking or moving for a second. 

😙

On one of our hikes, Johnny commented that Larisa Anatolyevna seemed to be talking one moment and then would suddenly “break into chant.” “What happens then?” he asked. I was confused until the next time she stopped to talk to us. At some point, Johnny looked pointedly at me: Larisa Anatolyevna was saying “So you ask a question. Curiosity. But the elders say you should ask, will this knowledge help you reach salvation? Otherwise, empty.” Johnny, with little knowledge of Russian, had musically pinpointed that moment when Larisa Anatolyevna stopped giving information and began preaching. 

It was when we were in the main church and discussing the iconography, that she mentioned St. Herman of Alaska. St. Herman of Alaska had been a Valaamite, so he was also “ours,” Larisa Anatolyevna said. Then, as she mentioned in a quick thick summary of his life, his trip to Alaska, she took a side route. “Well, Alaska is ours, right? It’s ours, right?” she asked, scathingly, straight at us. When LA said that “St. Herman of Alaska is the father of all American Orthodoxy and the majority of Orthodox living in America take their beginning from him,” Katya couldn't (wouldn't take it anymore) and flipped out an alternative history of Orthodoxy in America. LA shot back: "well, where are his relics?” “In Alaska, I think.” Katya answered. “You think. You should know.” LA answered triumphantly.

God only knows why or how, but we became friends from that very minute. By the end of the trip, on the Holy Island, she referred to us lovingly as Americans and we would happily react to her “where are my Americans?”We got special treatment and were always asked lead the singing. She showed us all the her secret places on the islands and insisted on taking pictures of us everywhere, all the time, never resting until they were "perfect."

When our bus was already driving through St. Petersburg, Larisa Anatolyevna and one of the other ladies, who had sat me on her lap earlier that day when there were no seats on the bus, took the microphone for a different reason. They told us that they loved having us, loved us, and that we should tell our parents that they should be proud of bringing up such upright Americans with Russian souls.

We hugged Larisa Anatolyevna tightly when we were saying goodbye. Somehow, all her crazies no longer drove us insane; we had learned to laugh at her jokes, filter her crazier phrases, appreciate her tidbits of wisdom (some of them). And we had also caught on fire from the million electric sparks she emanated whenever she talked about Valaam, her favorite place in the cold wide world.